The Little Pink Book
The Little Pink Book is the third episode of season 1 in the Hey Arnold! TV Series, and the 3rd episode overall. Blurb Helga's journal full of love poems about Arnold has fallen into Arnold's and Gerald's hands! Now the boys are determined to find out who wrote the poems. And Helga's determined to stop them! Summary Arnold is sitting in class, bored, when all of a sudden he gets hit by a spitball. Annoyed by it, he turns around to find out who did it. When he turns back to his desk, it happens again, with Arnold once again turning around to see who did it, but Helga gets angry at Arnold for looking at her. Helga is then seen opening her maths book, revealing a cutout with a little pink book inside that contains poems about Arnold. She takes it out, and writes another poem. After school, Helga boards the bus, and cuts some of Arnold's hair off as she walks past him. She sits at the back of the bus, and begins to write another poem about Arnold, however, she signs her name on it, something she hasn't done in the book before. Before exiting the school bus, she accidentally drops the book on top of Gerald's books, who notices it after they get off the bus. Gerald reads some of the poems out loud for the whole neighborhood to hear, embarrassing Arnold in front of everyone. This leaves Arnold determined to find out who his secret admirer is. Meanwhile, after Helga gets home, she realises the book is missing, and runs off screaming to Arnold's house, knowing that she has to try and get the book back from Arnold before he reads the last page, where she signed her name. Afterwards, in Arnold's room, Arnold and Gerald begin to discuss suspects, Arnold suggests that Ruth McDougal might have written the poems, but Gerald is skeptical because of her being in the 6th Grade. Arnold decides to turn to his pet pig, Abner, in order to track down girls who might have authored the little book. After letting Abner smell the book cover, he speeds off, with Arnold and Gerald following closely behind. As Arnold and Gerald leave the boarding house, Helga sneaks up onto the roof and manages to clumsily enter Arnold's room via one of the glass roof panels. Helga takes a moment to admire her surroundings, but then spots where Arnold left her book of poems - on the top shelf above his stereo. She rushes up to take it, but suddenly hears Arnold coming back, she falls off the bookshelf, and rushes to hide in the closet. As Arnold and Gerald return, Arnold feels something isn't right. Helga panics as realizes that she took one of Arnold's socks off the bed. Arnold approaches the closet, but before he gets any further, he pulls out his remote and turns on his stereo and lights. Helga is relieved. Arnold and Gerald take some evidence they had gathered from various girls from P.S. 118. These include Jennifer's drinking cup, Dodie's retainer, and Ruth's hair ribbon. After several experiments, all the tests come back negative. The only results they could find was that the suspect as female, lives in the tri-city area, and is aged 8-87. Arnold decides to try another approach. He suggests trying to match the handwriting from the little pink book to the girls in the P.S. 118 yearbook. After suggesting they look at Ruth McDougal first, Gerald tries to convince Arnold that it was not Ruth that wrote the poems. Arnold and Gerald spend the whole evening looking through the yearbook, before Gerald suggests giving up. Gerald says the next girl on the list is Helga Pataki, sending both of them into a fit of laughter and Helga scowling in the background. Gerald suggests taking a break and getting some ice-cream with Helga silently cheering in the background, however, Arnold says he wants to go straight to bed. So that she's able to stay the night, Helga instructs Phoebe through a cell phone call to tell her mom that she's sleeping over at her house. Helga then spends the night in Arnold's closet. In the morning, Helga awakens exhausted in the closet, hoping to get the little pink book back, only to see Arnold put it in his pocket. Downstairs, Grandpa asks Arnold if he's found out who his secret admirer is, but Arnold says he hasn't. Grandpa tells Arnold he's pretty lucky to have someone looking out for him. Arnold says it is pretty cool, "obsessive, but cool." At P.S. 118, Arnold reads out the poems in the pink book to his classmates, and they all laugh at them. Meanwhile, Helga walks up to them in a terrible state. Stinky suggests she's been sleeping in a closet, but gets shoved into a trash can as a result. Helga then realizes that Arnold is about to read aloud the last page with her name written on it, but before Arnold can finish the poem, Helga runs up and tears out the page from the book, chews it into a spitball, and throws it at Arnold. Arnold wonders what is up with Helga, and while inside, Helga cuddles the lock of hair she was able to rescue from the little pink book. Stinky is seen still stuck in the trash can, and falls over while trying to get out. Poem The poem Helga wrote about Arnold goes as follows: H is for the head I'd like to punt E is for every time I see the little runt L is longing for our firstest kiss G is for how good that longing is..... A is for Arnold Trivia *Arnold's eyes are confirmed to be green, which could be a possible connection to The Green-Eyed People in the episode The Journal. *Arnold goes to bed at around 7 PM. *Ruth McDougal makes her first appearance in this episode. *This is the first time Helga has been in Arnold’s room. *A character named Dodie is featured in this episode. Dodie is also the name of one of the main characters of As Told By Ginger, which would premiere its pilot two years later. *The official Hey Arnold! site lists this episode as The Little Pink Book Catastrophe!!. *First appearance of grandpa. Goofs *As Gerald yells "Arnold! Arnold! Arnold!", various characters move and appear in different positions as the camera zooms out for the first time, while Curly and two cars disappear when the crowd starts laughing. *When Hega runs off screaming, the book and other items that fell on her stoop are not seen. *Arnold believed that the hair in the book might be from his crush, Ruth McDougal, but the hair is yellow like his, and Ruth had brown hair, so Arnold should know it wasn't Ruth's hair. *When Arnold puts the book on the bookshelf to go collect evidence, he puts it leaning against the potted plant. But when Helga comes in and finds it, it's standing straight up. *At the end of the episode when Arnold and Gerald run inside the school, the doors close, but both of them overlap the door, and can be seen in front of it. See also *Quotes from this episode External links *Discussion of this episode in Hey Arnold! 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